The burgeoning demand for providing health care to all members of society has raised issues concerning the means for providing such care in an affordable manner. That is, the concern for providing adequate medical care to patients must be balanced with the exponentially rising costs of such care, particulary for inpatient hospitalization.
Accordingly, it is desirable to encourage outpatient medical care and promote treatment of ambulatory patients. Such arrangements require a system that provides sufficient information concerning the medical condition of the ambulatory patient, particularly with respect to an emergency situation, without inundating the medical personnel with unnecessary information.
A known medical alert system that is directed to ambulatory patients includes a base transceiver unit coupled to a telephone unit. The transceiver includes a transmitter circuit connected to a loudspeaker and a receiver circuit connected, by way of a wireless link, to a remote signal generator. The signal generator, which may be clipped to the ambulatory patient's clothing, includes circuitry for generating an alarm signal and a transmitter for transmitting the alarm signal to the base transceiver. In the event of an emergency situation, the ambulatory patient depresses a button located on the signal generator, which generates the alarm signal and transmits to the signal to the base transceiver. The receiver of the base transceiver dials a predetermined telephone number to inform a medical alert operator of the emergency. The operator then dials the ambulatory patient's telephone number and communicates to the patient via the loudspeaker.
A disadvantage of this arrangement is that the ambulatory patient must be situated a predetermined proximity to the base transceiver, e.g., in the patient's home, in order to communicate with the medical alert operator via the telephone unit. Otherwise, the patient cannot signal the operator and the operator has no way of determining the location of the patient.
Moreover, the patient must initiate the alarm signal, which could prove disastrous if the patient is unconscious or otherwise unable to initiate the alarm, or is unaware of a condition that requires attention. Even if the patient is successful in signaling the operator, it is the patient's responsibility to provide the operator with information concerning the emergency medical condition.
What is needed is an efficient method and apparatus for providing specific medical information about an ambulatory patient to medical personnel without patient intervention.